LIBRARY AS MAKERSPACE

Clear drawers are super storage option As with any new initiative, committing time and money are of utmost importance. But no less critical is the issue of storage! Has the library made a commitment to housing all the supplies and tools necessary to run a small electronics lab? A sewing center? A crafting corner? We are lucky to have a lockable multipurpose room with built in cupboards (it used to host an in-house cafe for patrons which didn't work out). The cupboards provide a welcome location to tuck away tool kits, painting supplies, boxes of costumes, recyclables, etc. that we were using for our annual 4th of July parade float and various on-going programs to which we had made a commitment. When the notion of a Makerspace came up, we all thought of the Resource Room immediately, but, as the chief "Maker of Messes," "Uncontrollable glitter-meister,"  in the Resource Room, I was keenly aware of the danger of making this space unusable for the many, ...

Although I'm not a big home decorator, I have fallen in love with chalkboard and magnetic paints in my home.  Plain mugs, message boards or picture frames are getting a personal touch this holiday season. How does this fit into libraries? With the growing popularity of collaborative spaces between museums and children's rooms in libraries, there is a call for more interactive spaces between parents and their children with or without a librarian present. Old cork boards can be turned into over-sized refrigerator door art displays from patrons with magnetic frames and construction paper. What about making a chalk board to ask a question like what everyone is thankful for this year? and just leave out some chalk (in a well supervised area of course!). We all probably have some magnetic alphabet letters lying around. Why not re-create Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin? Just this past week I learned about taking it to a whole new level with conductive paint, which turns...

Here at the Duxbury Free Library we have geared up to help people of all ages participate in the Hour of Code. Of course, folks can do their hour anywhere they have access to wifi, but we're making it easy to do it at the library!   HOUR OF CODE We have designated computers for this project, volunteers (our PHILS group and others ) coming after school to help anyone who might be a bit hesitant to dip their toes in, and bookmarks with a list of sites people can follow up with to learn and practice more! It's important for both boys and girls to see coding as a part of life - no matter what their career goals. Every modern job will require some knowledge of computer coding to be fully mastered. It's really logical, fun and satisfying to practice the computational skills on the Hour of Code web site !

Highlighted in the latest School Library Journal, this exciting tween space in the Tio Trennon Library in Stockholm, Sweden, is inspiring...! "TioTretton is an oasis full of books for those between 10 and 13 years old.  Besides snuggling into a book at one of our cozy reading space, you can also play theater, make songs, animate or cook.  Or do nothing." Sewing machines are ready for use to create costumes or whatever. http://kulturhusetstadsteatern.se/Bibliotek/Tiotretton/ Opportunities to create films and animations using resident ipads, cook in a full kitchen, sit and read, hang out with friends... all in stocking feet. Shoes are left at the door.

Thinking that I was taking a week off from the cutting edge of coding and electronics, I prevailed upon Nancy Denman and Jessica Lamarre to borrow their Keva blocks to let the Middle Schoolers play with simple pine planks to see what they might construct. Sure enough, stop the presses. I was caught unawares. The booklet that comes with the Keva blocks was worth a thousand words, of course, and the most thoughtful of our compadres took a moment to look at and read the simple booklet before proceeding. That was their success. Come to find out, Keva blocks teach simple but profound concepts of design and construction.  A tightly webbed inter-locking of the bricks achieves enormous stability and firmness. Check it out for yourself: In addition, we always host a Take Apart Table that encourages teens to dig under the surface and deconstruct the way electronic toys work.

Introducing the PHILS to the coding tutorial for the December "Hour of Code" was fun and, just when we thought we'd have to string them along for a while, the organizers came up with the whole series of tutorials on their web site!                  http://csedweek.org/learn2 We needed the practice run to figure out how much we can rely on using the library wireless connection with our new iPads or do we need to stick to the wired desktops in the Reference and Children's areas. Lucky for us, Denise had arrange for a new wireless router to be installed today in the lower level so now the whole building should have a strong signal all day long. Yay, Denise! We're hoping that will give us adequate connectivity to handle all the old and young Coders we hope will participate in the week long, "HOUR OF CODE" from Dec. 9 - Dec. 14th. Then, later in the week, we had our first "Wearable Electronics" workshop as a way to gain the interest of gi...

 Our next makerspace project at the DFL is using conductive thread! Who knew they made such a thing?   Want something a little different to wear this holiday season? Make a twinkling accent for your updo. Open to grades 5-adult on Saturday November 9th from 10-11:30am. This class will teach you to make a ribbon bow and simple LED circuit. One Adafruit LED Sewing Kit has enough supplies for two bows, so make this project with a friend! All we have to do is sew up the ribbon, attached the circuit and connect the tiny battery. Limit to ten people. Sign up starts on Oct.26th. Contributions to kit supply gratefully accepted but not required.($15 each)

I had the opportunity to attend the annual Teen Summit, hosted by the Massachusetts Library System and the Rhode Island Office of Library and Information Services in Worcester this past week.  Youth librarians from both states were invited to come together and talk shop. The theme this year was "Full STEAM Ahead", a subject that here at the DFL, is right on target. The keynote speaker was the delightful YA author, Marissa Meyer, who surprisingly spent a small amount of time talking about her wonderful science fiction fairy tale quartet "The Lunar Chronicles" and most of her presentation introducing the concept of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math). Using her childhood love of Star Trek, she posed the question; When does science fiction inspire fact or visa versa? Did the Star Trek communicator inspire a flip phone? Will warp speed ever exist? Did the fashionable Geordi La Forge visors inspire tools that grant sight? These were just a f...

Today we started with a Makerspace initiative teaching basic soldering to our Middle school rapscallions, the PHILS, with the super "newbie-friendly" Maker badge. Suzanne and I felt pretty confident based on our previous tinkering... We were able to refresh our own soldering know-how while giving our antsy Middle Schoolers the training they needed while they had their after-school snacks. Thank goodness for youtube video tutorials. Here's the one we watched: http://makezine.com/2007/01/05/soldering-tutorial-make-v/ Lo and behold, the guys dove right in without hesitation and, after a few false starts (be sure to buy a couple extra kits), they all got their badges to light up! Then, in the evening, we shifted gears and hosted Kerrie Capraro and her awesome family of Suburban Homesteaders as they presented, Raising Chickens in the Suburbs ! Wow. They really made their case for this exciting family project - so many wonderful experiences that enrich family life...

Many of you know that Jessica and I are trying things out on our Middle School group, the PHILS, on Tuesday afternoons, with the objective being to gauge activity flow, supervision requirements, etc. in preparation for a more robust on-going Tuesday program for a more diverse age group. One of the interesting things we have found is that it's good to have a couple of options to choose from on any given day. Gathering first to explain and perhaps grab a teachable moment, then allow some free flow between activities. Some kids really like to dig into one thing, others like to try a few things out. This feels important to me because if we want this program to be on-going and a bit self-sustaining, we can't be constantly coming up with unique activities every week, but I don't feel that that's necessary! The Take-Apart Table is ALWAYS interesting. I learned that limiting the number of things to take apart is better. Yesterday, someone took apart an old keyboard. Ins...

Today, Kevin Osborn, Maker Extraordinaire, and his trusty 15 year old side kick, Max Tepermeister, came to explain the history and practical uses for 3D printers. In true Duxbury fashion, we had an audience who feels we should jump right into this technology and make it available to the patrons of the library, tout suite! With two printers cranking out layers of melted filament, Kevin and Max gave us an inside look at the uses and creativity that 3D printing can inspire. The uses range from replacement human jaws to replacement parts in old cars and machinery to unique artistic creations in plastic, metal and ceramic. Who knew you could create in all these media in the 3D printing world? Max MADE his 3D printer from scratch and tweaked it all summer long (did I mention that he's 15 and in the 10th grade?) and he was cranking out the pieces to this really cool interlocking spiral gear that looked kinda like the cross-section of an ammonite.... but I digress.... Patrons the...

Cardboard kitties do cool stuff with Little Bits I just borrowed a set of Little Bits from the Children's Room tonight to try them out in the hope that we can get some quick traction in electronics without relying on an "expert" or a ringer. Success! Check out the wonderful TED talk by Little Bits creator, MIT Media Lab alum, Canadian of Lebanese Arab background,   Ayah Bdeir ,  (she got a B.A. from the American University of Beirut before she got her M.A. at the MIT Media Lab). This is a quintessential example of the global brain trust. Plus, she doesn't quite look like the stereotypical engineer... Ayah Bdeir Little bits are pre-assembled circuits, held together by magnets, color-coded to make the relationship between Power, Input, Wire, Output. It's that simple, but that's what gives it so much power. It teaches the relationship between components from the get-go. I'm excited to challenge the teens tomorrow with some building schematics....

The Case for Libraries as Makerspaces Although there is a big educational component to the Makerspace Movement, setting up a Makerspace in your library should not be limited to simply finding people to give one-shot lectures or courses. We've been a venue for lectures for decades. Why not just leave classes on topics of interest to the evening classes at the high school or senior center? The answer is that we are using instructional classes and drop-in help with trouble-shooting as a stepping stone towards an ultimate goal of creating a space where people have the skills, tools, resources both human and physical, and TIME to experiment, explore, and create something new. The intellectual impetus around Makerspace is the goal of unleashing people's creative juices and making something new that isn't a kit, isn't on a crib sheet, hasn't been thought of yet. Librarians are exactly the right people to cultivate this movement because we are experts at finding r...

We're starting off the Fall season with a bang! Technology updates and adult soldering lessons.  Saturday, Sept. 21 10:30 - Noon                    Merry Meeting Room 3-D Printing Lecture / Demo Find out what all the fuss is about from engineer, Kevin Osborn, director of research and commercial development for the advanced instruments group at Radiation Monitoring Devices. Kevin will bring in his 3-D printer and another one built by a young hacker friend. He will review the history, bringing us up to the present in terms of current and future applications and you will get to see actual 3-D production at work. Sign ups begin on Sept. 7th on the Meeting Room Calendar:   www.duxburyfreelibrary.org Saturday, Sept. 21 1- 3 p.m.                            Setter Room Electrify Your Halloween Do you love Halloween? Want to...

Here at the DFL we do a lot of programming - for kids, teens and adults. Now that we are re-focusing our programming energy to become a Makerspace, we are discussing the value of single, one-shot programs vs. on-going week by week or month by month programs. I think we have to do both. In many ways, single, one-shot programs can be very satisfying. Someone comes in and gives a lecture, a performance, a workshop. Everyone enjoys it, gives great feedback and goes home. With Dale Doughtery's challenge in mind, "If they build it (a tinkering, exploring, discovering space) they will come," we are trying to fathom how to build sustainable, interesting, patron-driven, creation opportunities. Bookmarks Syping with YA author at Cedar Hill The models I am leaning on are both my 15 year weekly teen discussion group, which sustains itself, 52 weeks a year - if I'm there or not, AND, newer upstart status, Laughter Yoga co-led by me and Rose Hickey - a 1 1/2 year we...

On Monday, August 19 a new monthly gathering started at the DFL: Knit Night. Run by Karen Hahn, circulation assistant and passionate knitter, this group will meet the 3rd Monday of every month, 6:00- 8:00PM  in the Resource Room for the foreseeable future. I'm making a blanket, can you tell? About 12 women (including me in the middle there) showed up for the first meeting. Many had projects started and were there to enjoy knitting with a group, while others were beginners learning how to knit, and some folks brought difficult projects along to get Karen's help with particular problems. Karen gave us a little lecture about the importance of gauge swatches and was both helpful and encouraging to anyone who had a question. Karen, in turquoise, during a teachable moment. I, for one, am the only knitter in my circle of family and friends, so it was great to be around people who also like talking about yarn and knitting patterns. Knitting is a great fit with the Make...